The Patience Vignettes
by Jessamyn Dreamer
Summary: I'm not going to have chldren... A strange little series of postBones vignettes. FF
1. Chapter 1

Patience Booth

Vignettes

"You are gorgeous! Are you gorgeous? Yes you are, you're booful! You're booful!"

"Angela!" Angela turned far too innocent eyes to her best friend. "What are you doing?"

"I'm talking to her. Aren't I talking to you, my little cutie pookies?"

"No, no." Temperance walked to the crib, "You should never speak baby-talk to a baby."

"Jeez, Bones," and Booth joined the baby admirers, "Lighten up. Who else can you talk baby-talk to other than a baby?"

"That's not the point," insisted Bones, turning her 'lecture face' on her husband, "It's a pointless effort to make up a fake language with no logical differences, just to speak it to a child who should be learning English."

"Ah, no…" Booth looked shell-shocked.

"Are you talking about Baby-talk?" asked Hodgins, jogging up to the crib gang.

"Yes." Said Angela with no real enthusiasm.

"Did you know that a secret branch of the government trains their spies to take secret messages in a code disguised as baby-talk?" This comment was treated with the silent contempt it deserved.

"Where did you dig that one up?" Angela raised her eyebrows.

You don't believe me, fine, but just think what you may be saying to that kid right now." "Hodgins…" Angela rolled her eyes.

"Okay," Said Hodgins flatly, "But seriously, you're totally screwing up the kid's brain."

"Hodgins is right," Said Bones grudgingly, "It's anti-productive to speak baby-talk."

"C'mon, Bones." Booth put his arm around her in an ill-planned attempt at a calming influence. "It can't be that bad."

Big mistake.

"Don't sound that way."

"What way?"

"All pompous and 'take a cool pill, Bones', and pedantic."

"Okay, first off, it's 'chill pill', and secondly," he dodged the glare, "I wasn't sounding Portentous."

"Pompous."

"Yeah, that! I wasn't."

"You were implying that the fate of our child's linguistic skills was less important than you getting to speak baby talk!"

"I was not implying- I was just saying that I don't see the harm in a bit of baby-talk!"

"Exactly." Said Angela.

"Are you kidding, you're like, rotting the kid's brain cells." Hodgins grinned wickedly. "Hey, did you hear- " This was wiped out by the continuing disagreement.

"I'm not rotting her brain cells, I'm just talking baby-talk!"

"But you're influencing her future verbal abilities every time you talk to her with baby-talk!"

"Hey, does anyone but me think that 'baby-talk' is one of those things that can only be said so many times before it starts to sound really stupid?" asked Angela, popping a mint, "You know, like 'gummy bear'?"

"What?" asked both parents in unison.

Zach had been listening silently, and now said thoughtfully, "My parents never spoke baby-talk to me."

There was a long moment when no one spoke. The Booth picked up Patience. And silently carried her to Bones. The quiet continued as the held her between them.

"Um," said Booth carefully, "Who's my little bookie-bear? Are you my little bookie-bear?"

"Are you Daddy's little bookie-bear?" Asked Bones with utter sincerity.

And Patience said, "Glaahh-ah-hah!"

And that settled it.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Chapter II_**

Agent Seeley Booth, FBI, walked through his living room, drinking a coke and thinking about a case.

And that was almost all.

He spun around as his parental spidey senses drew his attention inexorably towards the dark figure standing very, very still behind his personal armchair. There was a long moment, and neither blinked.

"Patience."

"Yes, Daddy?" Patience looked up at him with the most innocent eyes ever to hide a secret.

"Patience, do you have something in your mouth?"

"Yes, Daddy." A direct confession! And yet, the chocolate brown eyes might actually pull this off. Booth summoned his willpower.

"Patience, what do you have in your mouth?"

"'Bolus?"

"'Bol-…_What?_"

"Bolus." She replied patiently, "'A wound mass of somefing, espethially of chewed food in the mouth or awimentary canal-"

"Yeah, I get it." He stared at her very hard. "Bones! Your kid."

"What?" Temperance leaned out of her home office. "No, five minutes ago she was your kid."

"Yeah, well," Booth shrugged, still keeping the tiny perpetrator in his sights. "That was then…"

There was an audible sigh and the sound of something being not slammed on the table. A moment later the very dangerous sight of an interrupted Temperance Brennan-Booth stormed into the scene of the crime.

"What is it?" She asked Booth, just a little bit accusingly

"Hey, it's not me. Your kid has something in her mouth and she isn't telling me what."

"Well did you ask her?"

"Well, yeah, I did, but…" he crossed his arms defensively, "It's complicated."

Temperance didn't roll her eyes. But it was an effort.

"Patience?" she knelt in front of the little girl "Patience what have you got in your mouth?"

"A bolus." She repeated, just as patiently as if she hadn't already had to explain this to Daddy.

"Yes, but what kind of bolus?"

Patience looked thoughtful and edgy.

"Yummy bolus?"

Her mother frowned for a moment.

"Booth! Your kid."

"What?" he nearly choked on his soda, "No, I just handed her over to you, she's your kid!"

"Well that was before she started putting scientific terms together with 'yummy', so now she's your kid."

"How does that make her my kid?"

"Well, I never say yummy."

"Well I never say… whatever."

"But you sometimes combine words in similarly inapt ways. Do you know anyone else who would say something like 'yummy bolus'?"

"Well, Zach… might." He shrugged defensively.

"That's not the same."

"Why not?"

"Because Zach wasn't party to Patience's conception!"

"Damn, Bones, please don't _ever_ make me think of that again."

"Sorry."

There was a brief interlude of silent communion, concluded with a kiss.

"Maybe she's _our_ kid?" murmered Booth, and Bones just smiled and nodded.

But when they turned around, Patience was sitting in her room, reading a golden book, finishing an apple.


End file.
